Revisit These 10 Best Episodes of ‘Private Practice’ Amid Revival Buzz (VIDEO)
Attention: Private Practice fans! Shondaland boss and Grey’s Anatomy creator Shonda Rhimes said on Good Morning America recently that she would love to bring Private Practice back. The popular Grey’s spinoff focused on Dr. Addison Montgomery (Kate Walsh) and her colleagues at a medical practice in Los Angeles, California.
“I actually feel like we didn’t finish telling our stories on Private Practice,” Rhimes noted. “We had so many more stories we could tell. … I just felt like we had so much more to say with those characters and so much further to go, and that also felt like a show that had endless possibility, where you’re learning and seeing things happen at the same time, medically.”
Indeed, fan votes suggest that ABC canceled Private Practice (or, at least, announced that its sixth season would be its last) right as the going got especially good. Of IMDb voters’ picks for the 10 best Private Practice episodes, all are from the third season or later, and three are from the final five episodes of the show. Here are those series highlights. (Warning: Major spoilers ahead.)
10. Season 5, Episode 15: “You Break My Heart”
Cooper (Paul Adelstein) and Charlotte (KaDee Strickland) take his baby mama, Erica (My So-Called Life vet A.J. Langer), to Seattle Grace for a risky surgery — with neuro-siblings Derek (Patrick Dempsey) and Amelia (Caterina Scorsone) on the case. Meanwhile, Sam (Taye Diggs) grapples with the return of his sister Corinne (Anika Noni Rose), and Violet (Amy Brenneman) considers taking things to the next level with paramedic beau Scott (Arrow star Stephen Amell).
9. Season 6, Episode 10: “Georgia on My Mind”
Charlotte is ordered to bed rest, still pregnant with two of her and Cooper’s triplets, but still insists on running St. Ambrose Hospital from her bed, much to Cooper’s concern. Meanwhile, the triplet who made an early arrival (at only 26 weeks) clings to life in the NICU. (Also, Charlotte has dreams of herself dancing with Cooper, with hip-hop and Bollywood-style choreography that “may be the most cringe thing I’ve ever seen,” one Reddit user wrote.)
8. Season 6, Episode 13: “In Which We Say Goodbye”
In Private Practice’s series finale, Addison ties the knot with Jake Reilly (Benjamin Bratt), and Naomi returns for the occasion, marking Audra McDonald’s first time on the show since Season 4. Naomi also reconciles with Sam once and for all. Meanwhile, Cooper adjusts to his stay-at-home dad role, and Violet finishes a memoir she’s calling… Private Practice.
7. Season 5, Episode 22: “Gone, Baby, Gone”
The show ended its fifth season with Jake proposing to Addison and Amelia welcoming “unicorn baby” Christoper, who died shortly after birth. And in what would turn out to be his last appearance on the show, Pete (Tim Daly) faces legal consequences for allowing a patient to die against the wishes of that patient’s father.
6. Season 3, Episode 1: “A Death in the Family”
Season 3 picks up where the Season 2 cliffhanger left off, with Violet barely alive following an attack by a patient who cut Violet’s baby out of her uterus. Pete, the baby’s father, finds Violet bleeding out on the floor of her house. But the episode’s funeral scenes turn out to be unrelated flashbacks — Violet survives, as does her baby, Lucas.
5. Season 3, Episode 7: “The Hard Part”
Addison and Sam have to take their medicine into the field when they happen across a pregnant woman trapped in her car following an accident in the hills of Malibu. But then the car slips down a hillside with Addison still inside. Back in civilization, Charlotte treats a groom who took too much Viagra on his wedding night, and Pete and Sheldon (Brian Benben) duke it out over the same woman at a bar.
4. Season 6, Episode 9: “I’m Fine”
As Sheldon undergoes treatment for prostate cancer, he meets and strikes up a romance with another radiation patient, Miranda (Fire Country’s Diane Farr). And when he’s back on the job, Sheldon handles a patient he suspects is involved in a young girl’s disappearance.
3. Season 3, Episode 23: “The End of a Beautiful Friendship”
Oceanside Wellness’ receptionist-turned-midwife Dell (Chris Lowell) dies as the result of his injuries in a car crash that nearly killed Sam and Naomi’s daughter Maya (All American: Homecoming star Geffri Maya) and her unborn child. Meanwhile, Sam comes to realize the patient on his operating table was the drunk driver who crashed into Dell and Maya.
2. Season 5, Episode 8: “Who We Are”
As Amelia’s coworkers at the practice stage an intervention to get her to deal with her drug addiction, viewers see flashbacks that she and Derek witnessed the murder of their father. Back in the present, Amelia rejects her colleagues’ help until she wakes up to find her fiancé, Ryan (Wes Brown), dead of an overdose.
1. Season 4, Episode 7: “Did You Hear What Happened to Charlotte King?”
Viewers’ pick for the best Private Practice episode chronicles the aftermath of Charlotte’s physical and sexual assault, with Buffy alum Nicholas Brendon guest-starring as the rapist. Rhimes wrote the episode herself in collaboration with the Rape, Abuse & Incest National Network (RAINN), and the episode also got commendations from the Television Academy for exemplifying “Television With a Conscience.”
Private Practice, Seasons 1—6, Now Streaming, Hulu
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